Israeli and Palestinian Businessmen Team Up to Urge Negotiations

Can a lobby of Israeli and Palestinian businessmen push their leaders to where they have failed to lead?

The restart of Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiations has eluded diplomatic efforts by the Obama administration and the international community over the last four years, but a group of hundreds of local businessmen from both sides think they can deploy their clout break the impasse and get the two sides back to the table.

With dozens of the executives on hand at the World Economic Forum’s Middle East regional meeting at a convention center on the Jordanian bank of the Dead Sea, leaders of the business initiative said they didn’t want to dictate the terms of peace, but to plead that the status quo is untenable.

Though that sounded a lot like the talking points of U.S. and Western diplomats, the business group claims to represent companies accounting for tens of thousands of jobs and a “substantial’’ chunk of both economies.

“The biggest risk is that we are treating this like a chronic disease, and we lose hope it can be solved, even though we know it could be solved,’’ said Yossi Vardi, a leading Israeli technology venture capitalist who started the “Breaking the Impasse Initiative’’ with Palestinian tycoon Munib Masri a year ago.

We would like to trigger the leaders to go into resolving this conflict, while we are saying to them this is their responsibility … find a solution. We are providing a strong and clear voice of civil society.”

Mr. Masri, who owns the largest business conglomerate in the Palestinian territories, warned of “falling into an abyss of conflict’’ if talks were not restarted.

Despite portraying themselves as leaving the details of negotiations to the leaders, a statement read in the conference plenary said that leaders endorsed a peace deal based on the 1967 Green Line, Jerusalem as a shared capital for Israelis and Palestinians, and a “just’’ solution for Palestinian refugees – points which the current Israeli government have yet to endorse.

The group of businessmen has been meeting over the last year in “secret’’ and communicating through “backchannels,’’ according to the organizers.

The Israeli group includes the Mooly Eden president of Intel Corp.’s Israel division – with 8,700 employees – and Dan Propper, the former head of the manufacturers association, and Dan Gillerman, the former head of the chambers of commerce. The Palestinian group includes Zahi Khoury, Chief Executive of Palestinian National Beverage Company, the local bottler of Coca Cola, and Nasser Nasser, who owns one of the biggest stone cutting businesses in the West Bank.

Organizers couldn’t say exactly how they planned to pressure the governments going forward, and aren’t sure what their next move would be. “We are still discussing it,’’ said Yadin Kaufman, an Israeli venture capitalist who jointly runs a fund that invests in Palestinian technology.

Signaling Palestinian sensitivity about normalization with Israel and fears of an economic plan to buy West Bank quiescence instead of a peace deal, Mr. Masri declared “no to an economic peace.’’

Despite that, the initiative did win compliments from Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. leaders. The initiative seemed to dovetail with Secretary of State John Kerry’s call for the private sector to lead economic development, and for $4 billion in investments in the West Bank.

“Who knows, maybe peace will come out of this initiative,’’ said President Mahmoud Abbas. “ Economics are pragmatic .’’